For me, whatever the configuration, diary is a poorly-chosen term because it is not immediately clear to a neophyte what it refers to (and a non-native English-speaker will get no help from a dictionary). So I'm for looking for a different name.

Scoop certainly provides for the rec list being automatically the content of the "front page". It also then provides for a fuller rating system for "diaries", including negative ratings. Even if the rating system were kept binary (recommend/do nothing) as now, your suggestion would change the way we look at diaries and recommend them. It would incite diarists to write "for the front page", and raters to think principally of that when rating. It would introduce a much greater notion of competition, and, imo, would do nothing for feelings of harmony and cooperation here. Neither is it obvious that it would provide a better front page than the current system, where an editorial choice is made of rec'd diaries that seem appropriate to the page that is, in a sense, the outer face of ET. Take the rec list I see now, for instance: three out of ten are unlikely front-page articles (however good they may be), the mock layout for ET (internal business), the Easter Barcelona meet (internal business), and Nonpartisan's excellent and gratefully-received image links (useful info for bloggers). Of the remaining seven, one (techno's) is on the front page, I've just put up Sven's hooch-from-trees piece, and possibly another will go over too. A point in favour of moderation is also that the rec list doesn't automatically reflect the quality of discussion threads (it may do so marginally, but recs are generally given on the basis of the diary itself, and early in its life).

Your solution for the Open Thread forgets the Salon, and also the fact that at least a day back, both of these continue to attract comments and should be visible. I see them in HTML which allows us to punctuate the front page with attractive graphics, rather than an RSS feed.